Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Kijiji craziness

Like many people who have useless crap laying around the house, I sell it online in order to have extra space in my cupboards (hoarding is so 2012) and make some cash on the side. I head off to Kijiji, an online marketplace (similar to a digital yard sale) and post some things.

Because of my work, I get a lot of free stuff that I will never use/wear/etc. but it's brand new and good quality. I'd never sell something that's old or broken. Who wants that? The way I calculate a price is by looking for the original MSRP, divide it by half and take off an extra $5. It's a good way to garner interest.

Then, people start to negotiate (a.k.a. "haggle").

For a woman's designer bracelet, I had a girl ask if I could take $X off it and I said I'd only do that if she picked it up at my work. She agreed... for a second.

That's kind of far for me. She says in an email. I tell her I work downtown (and the original posting says to be picked up downtown; I ain't FedEx).

If I pick it up [near your work] can you give me a discount?

I tell her it's already discounted from the original price and I won't discount it more.

Can you deliver them to [a mall that's not downtown]?

She's not getting it; she has to pick it up at/near my work (that's why I gave her another discount). I'd say English wasn't her first language, since she clearly doesn't understand what I'm saying, but her grammar is fine, so I'll brush it off as a case of idiocy.

What this girl doesn't realize if that I'd be losing money on the sale by traveling more than an hour one way, waiting for her (assuming she arrives on time), than traveling back more than an hour back to work. All for $20. Yeah, you read that right: twenty dollars.

As much as I want to tell her she's out of her fucking mind, I don't. I must remain professional.